Brains + Michael Bay = ...

Rating: 7/10 (8 April 2006)

Michael Bay is the wunderkind protégé of super producer Jerry Bruckheimer. His credits include films that amount to their pitch, dressed up in bombastic scores, pretty actors, explosions, melodrama, epileptic editing and enjoyable but undeniable silliness. For him to do a "thinking film" (on paper) begs two questions: "why?" and "how?".
Why? Because Mr Bay is entitled to explore other things (or at least to want to). How? By a mix of sometimes obvious, sometimes original ideas. The story focuses on Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Johansson), clones living in a secluded environment until they discover things are seriously wrong. The escape (I doubt anyone can consider this as a spoiler) and many chases occur, with an underlying theme of ethics and what it means to be human.
The subject matter of cloning is addressed with its plethora of moral dilemmas, even though the condition of clones is never as degrading as it should be (if the clones' environment is Bay's version of hell, he must live a very protected life). It is also shrugged of pretty quickly to focus on a love story between pretty people (admittedly very pretty in this case). The choice of Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson for a blockbuster is welcome as they are each thoroughly enjoyable and watchable actors (and Bay enjoys making them look even better without crushing their acting). One part of McGregor's performance (a scene with his alter-ego) even evokes subtlety (I know this is a Michael Bay film but you read correctly). The action scenes are predictably quite good if occasionally grotesque (believing in our heroes' survival from a certain building fall demands serious suspension of disbelief) and one car chase is particularly grizzly.
The problem is blatantly exposed in one DVD extra where Michael Bay says that he told the screenwriters to not dwell on the action scenes. He'd fill it in. Well it often feels that the whole film received this treatment. There is a lot of glossy Michael Bay and little serious thought on what are very contemporary issues. so the film disappoints for promising more than it is. It remains entertaining nonetheless for giving us its' two leads ruining from bullets and motorcycles, and for several nice little elements, such as Djimon Hounsou, a nice main theme in the music (typical of Michael Bay, let us admit) and that car chase...
This good fun, but certainly not a "thinking" film or message film. The only message to be found is this: let Michael Bay be Michael Bay.